Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Culture

On the shoulders of giants
January 10, 2023

On the shoulders of giants

Jean Hunnisett was a costume designer.   Someone whose job it is not just to recreate ‘the look’ of a particular period, but to recreate it in a way that is comfortable and practical for the actor to perform in.

People have changed over the centuries, becoming fuller and taller.   Clothes have become lighter and less constricting.  Women are no longer used to re-configuring their bodies to suit the current trend by wearing corsets from childhood.   So a costume designer’s job is never to simply reproduce historical examples, it is to re-interpret, re-measure and re-size those historical examples to produce the desired effect on screen without crippling the actor.

That’s hard work.  And Jean Hunnisett did it.   Once it was done, she put it out there for the world to share in her costumes and her books.  For people like me and Vivienne Westwood to find.

No matter how unique our genius, how brilliant our vision, we achieve nothing alone.   We build on the free gifts of human nature left by those who came before and those who work around us now.

That by no means diminishes our achievements.

But it seems only fair to acknowledge the gifts that enable us.

Trespassing
December 5, 2022

Trespassing

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been intrigued by the use of the word ‘trespass’ in the King James version of the Lord’s prayer – “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us”.

Why not ‘sin’, ‘wrongdoing’, ‘misbehaviour’, ‘offence’, ‘crime’?

The word ‘trespass’ has a very specific meaning – to cross a boundary into a space that belongs to someone else.   So why pick this word?

Perhaps because, in 1611, at the very dawn of capitalism, the authors wanted to remind us of the mutuality of our existence.   The fact that any rights we have as individuals must be bounded by the rights of others.

I am free to do whatever I like, as long as that doesn’t impinge on anyone else’s right to do whatever they like.   Which means in practice, that I must constantly consider others, present and future, in everything I do.

It seems to me that’s as true of a business or organisation just as much as an individual.

The politics of value
December 1, 2022

The politics of value

“The ultimate stakes of politics, … is not the struggle to appropriate value; it is the struggle to establish what value is. 

Similarly, the ultimate freedom is not to create or accumulate value, but the freedom to decide (collectively or individually) what makes life worth living. 

In the end then, politics is about the meaning of life.” David Graeber*

 

When you start your own business, you get to decide what value is.  And as long as you can find enough people who agree with you, you can grow.

That’s how we small businesses change the world, without even realising it.

Imagine what we could do if we did it on purpose!

 

*from ‘Toward an anthropological theory of value – the false coin of our own dreams.’

 

 

What if it was never about the things?
November 29, 2022

What if it was never about the things?

First nation peoples and clever marketers have known for a long time that Sharing your Promise is never really about selling the thing.  It’s about how that thing affects our relationship with ourselves and with others.  So what you’re really selling is a change of relations.

Which means of course, that when it comes to Keeping your Promise, you’re not really delivering the thing.   You’re delivering the shift in relationships signified and caused by the thing.

Which means that’s what the Customer Experience should be all about.

Which means that’s what should be in your Customer Experience Score.

And why keeping it human matters.

Autumn Statement
November 17, 2022

Autumn Statement

Economics is not a science.   How could it be?   It works with and on and around human beings.

It’s an art.  That used to be called political economy.  Until economists with certain politics decided to change that, to make it sound more scientific.

Nevertheless, economics, unlike physics (whose laws will be true even when we are no longer around to observe them), remains a purely human construct.   Something we make up to explain how the world works.

That means it can be wrong.   There can be alternatives which explain things better, or produce different results.   It all depends on the politics and the assumptions that politics makes about human beings.

So, if you’re interested in alternative economic constructs, here are some books I recommend:

  • The Deficit Myth
  • Doughnut Economics
  • 23 things they don’t tell you about capitalism
  • The Joy of Tax
  • The Production of Money
  • Poor Economics
  • The Value of Everything
  • Everything for Everyone
  • Capital in the 21st Century and it’s companion Capital and Ideology.
  • Principles of political economy and taxation
  • The Wealth of Nations
  • Capital

They’re all wrong of course.

But depending on what you’re trying to achieve they may be more helpful.

And at least you can make up your own mind.

 

 

 

Cut off
November 11, 2022

Cut off

My internet was down all day yesterday.    I felt so cut off!  Disabled even.

As if the only alternative to doing stuff online was to do nothing.

Which is ridiculous.

I’m just out of practice in the real world.

I need to get out more.

Maybe we all do.

Who fancies a coffee?

Dividends
November 8, 2022

Dividends

My interest in documenting how things should work came from my years in software development.   To me, it always seemed sensible to work out what you wanted your software to do before you built it, or bought it.

And even more sensible that it should reflect the way you do business rather than an average of hundreds of other firms.

Writing a customer Experience Score before you commission software has other benefits too.

It gets everyone thinking about change – ‘how we really want it to work’ rather than simply ‘how we do it now’.

It gets everyone thinking a level up from the day-to-day, about what has to happen when rather than how it happens.

But most of all it gives everyone, including you, the chance to reframe your business from a management hierarchy to an easily replicable system for making and keeping promises.

And the benefits keep coming after you’re done.   Once you can demonstrate that your unique system for making and keeping promises works consistently, people will ask you to do more of it for them.  And you will find it easy to scale up on delivery.

Like many a human enterprise, the hard work is all up front, but worth it for the dividends flying in later, almost effortlessly.

And isn’t that just what it means to be an entrepreneur?

Who is it for?
November 4, 2022

Who is it for?

Bonfire night in Lewes is a sight to behold.  But in my view, the most interesting thing about it is how it has resisted commercialisation.

Unlike Halloween, which has become yet another excuse to produce and consume yet more pointless stuff, Bonfire in Lewes is about Lewes and Bonfire.    It commemorates local martyrs by raising money locally and spending it locally.  Lewesians young and old get involved all year round raising money, creating displays and effigies, finally, celebrating the day itself with marches, music and spectacular fireworks.

No concessions are made to tourists or spectators.  It always takes place on November the 5th, unless that falls on a Sunday.  There are no safety barriers, no interpretation boards, barely any interaction beyond the collection bucket.    It’s not for them.

Bonfire in Lewes is for Lewes.  It’s not about production or consumption.  It’s about something much bigger than that.

It’s about culture.  It’s about continually recreating Lewes as a radical, self-aware and connected community with a mind of its own.  A place and culture where Tom Paine would still feel comfortable.

No wonder the authorities want to ban it.

Your business has a culture too.   Who is it for?   And what are you doing to continually recreate it, on purpose?

Tonight’s the night
October 31, 2022

Tonight’s the night

Tonight marks the start of Hallowtide.  The time when, in the Christian calendar and the Roman one before it, people remember the dead who came before.

For 300,000 years humans have come before us.  All dead now.

Gathering a pile of stuff we don’t need, can’t make safely or dispose of cleanly seems a poor way to celebrate their memory.

Dogma
October 3, 2022

Dogma

Dogma: a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted.

As a boss, in a moment of frustration,  you may feel that this is what you want.   And if you lock all decision-making into your systems and processes, you’ll get it.

Dogma scales, but it doesn’t evolve, and it frequently gets subverted.   If ‘computer says no‘ to often for my liking, I might just stop asking the computer.

If you want your business to outlast you and retain your vision, it’s better to create space for dissent, debate and experiment.   After all, dissent, debate and experiments are where discovery originates.

Use your systems and processes to create a floor that defines the minimum experience.    Guide your people with a small number of big principles.  Then let them spread the word in their own way.

You never know, you might just found a new religion.